“Not French Enough” Miss France Contest is Blighted by Antisemitism and Racism on Social Media
“Don't vote for Miss Provence because she is Jewish”, “Miss Ile-de-France, isn’t she the girl who works at the wok of Bondy?” and “[Miss France 2014] Mixed race is the cancer of white race". These are only some of the online reactions to the Miss France beauty pageants of the last 20 years, whenever contestants, or winners, were people of colour or, as in the latest case, of Jewish background. Their legitimacy to represent France, or a French region, was contested on the basis of their background and skin colour.
The latest case happened at the end of December, when April Benayoum, runner-up of Miss France 2021 who holds the title of Miss Provence, received hundreds of hateful messages on Twitter. What unleashed a torrent of antisemitic abuse was the fact that, during the competition final, she said that her father was born in Israel.
Benayoum was subjected to vitriolic attacks both for being Jewish and having Israeli origins. This, according to antisemitic messages online, would rule her out as a suitable candidate for the Miss France beauty pageant title. Among the many insults, she was called "garbage”. Many expressed their disappointment about her origins and called for people not to vote for her.
Antizionist messages, that is remarks in opposition to the establishment or support for the modern state of Israel, crossed the line to antisemitism, as the abuse directed at Benayoum held her responsible for the actions of Israel.
A number of tweets also referred to the Holocaust, specifically making fun of how Miss Provence was alive just because the Nazis “made a mistake”: ““Uncle Hitler forgot to exterminate Miss Provence”.
By presenting their winners as a visible embodiment of national identity, beauty pageants can play an important role in shifting perceptions, but they can also further entrench conservative views.
In an article on Fanceinfo, former Miss France contestants and winners recall their experiences of responses from the public. The first Miss France of African origin, Sonia Rolland, crowned at the end of 1999, says that while she was at the centre of media attention with interviews, photoshoots, and trips, she also received hundreds of racist letters with insults and threats.
In more recent years, reactions to non-white beauty contestants are still strong, and are amplified by social media. Both Flora Coquerel, Miss France 2014 whose mother is from Benin, and Morgane Edvige, first runner-up of Miss France 2016 born in Martinique, were bombarded with racist comments on Twitter.
In the case of Miss Provence this year, French prosecutors opened an investigation for "racist insults" and "instigation of race hatred" in messages that were posted mainly on Twitter.
“Let's meet behind the court for all the twittos who have transformed Twitter yesterday night into an antisemitic sewer against #MissProvence”, tweeted GTTO partner organisation Licra, and invited people to report hateful content to them in order to launch a class action suit against the perpetrators.
Other organisations, such as the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF) and France's Council of Jewish Representative Institutions (CRIF), strongly encouraged Twitter to take prompt action to remove hateful content in the platform, highlighting the striking numbers of abusive messages targeting Miss Provence.
